FIBA to propose 3x3 basketball as an Olympic event

[Hepcat2]

(Three) teams will be determined from the following groups at a pre-Olympic Qualifying Tournament which will take place in Graz, Austria from May 26 to May 30:

In the Men's Pool B Kazakhstan will be replacing New Zealand which has elected to withdraw from the tournament due to financial and other problems.

 

[Hepcat2]

In Rio 2016? Or, do you mean Tokyo 2020?

The discussion in this thread has been all about the Olympics that will be held in Tokyo in the summer of 2021.

not for Rio 2016, but this is officially happening in Tokyo 2020.

 

[Hepcat2]

An interesting 3x3 tournament, the Lipik Challenger, will take place in Lipik, Croatia tomorrow and Saturday:

Lipik Challenger 2021 - Teams

I'm particularly interested in seeing how the Edmonton team of Jordan Jensen-Whyte, Alex Johnson, Kyle Landry and Steve Sir will play and therefore whether Team Canada is a real contender to secure an Olympic berth in Graz, Austria next week.

 

[Hepcat2]

So Basketball Canada has announced that the Edmonton team of Jordan Jensen-Whyte, Alex Johnson, Kyle Landry and Steve Sir will represent Canada at next week's Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Graz and will also represent Canada at the Olympics if successful in qualifying.

 

[Hepcat2]

Well Edmonton(Team Canada) wasn't particularly impressive at the Lipik Challenger. The same Antwerp team of Bryan De Valck, Nick Celis, Thierry Marien and Thibaut Vervoort which finished eighth in the Pro Category of Stop 2 of the Lithuanian Championships in Garliava two weeks ago knocked off Edmonton 18-15 in the quarterfinals.

Edmonton did beat Bielefeld of Germany 21-18 in first round action but Bielefeld finished way back in tenth out of twelve teams at the ULE Tournament in St. Petersburg over the first three weekends of April.

Antwerp surprised me by going on to win the tournament championship. Antwerp prevailed 20-18 in the final over the San Juan team which also did a lot better than I expected:

Lipik Challenger

 

[JGX2]

At the "Big 12" tournament in France, Serbia beat the US 21-9 in the men's final, while the US women held off a late rally from France B for a 20-19 championship win.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SumlcXXhoU

 

[Hepcat2]

Interesting! The other teams in the Men's competition were the Dominican Republic, France, Hungary, Israel, Qatar, Russia and Ukraine.

 

[Hepcat2]

The U.S. team at the Graz Qualifying Tournament will consist of Robbie Hummel (Princeton), Kareem Maddox (Princeton), "Disco Domo" Jones (NY Harlem) and Joey King (NY Harlem). Joey King it seems is a last minute replacement for Canyon Barry, the son of NBA legend Rick Barry.

The team had a training camp in Orlando earlier this year and they've been training in another one in Los Angeles since May 1st. The United States is therefore taking the Olympic 3x3 event very seriously.

 

[Hepcat2]

I have a number of gripes with respect to how the whole Olympic 3x3 Tournament has been set up.

First of all, the stated objective of FIBA is to grow the game internationally by expanding into more countries. Why then can only eight teams per sex qualify for the Olympics? In some tournaments teams play as many as five of these ten minute games per day. FIBA could easily have arranged for an Olympic tournament with four groups of four teams per sex.

Secondly, I can understand Japan the host country automatically qualifying. And on the Men's side Serbia and Russia are also pre-qualified as the country's with the two highest ranking Federations in late 2019 (very luckily in Russia's case since Russia finished a miserable sixteenth at the 2019 World Cup and ninth at the 2019 Europe Cup). But China is also pre-qualified! Why? China is miserable at 3x3! What did China do, pay FIBA off? Why is FIBA kissing China's ass again?

The United States finished first at the 2019 World Cup. You would think that would have pre-qualified the United States. But no, it's China that's somehow pre-qualified.

Thirdly, prior to the Qualifying Tournament I thought that Latvia, the United States, Lithuania and the Netherlands had the four best Men's teams ( I may of course be wrong). And after the preliminary round robin I would have expected playoff pairings of Group A versus Group B and Group C versus Group D. Failing that for a different symmetry Group A versus Group D and Group B versus Group C. But no. Somehow FIBA decided to pair Group A versus Group C and Group B versus Group D in the first round of the playoffs. WTF?! This means that the four best teams are likely to be matched against each other in the QFs and two will be eliminated.

Finally if they fail in this tournament, I see that the Men's teams of Latvia, the Netherlands and Slovenia will get another chance to grab the eighth and final qualifying slot in a Universality Qualifying Tournament for countries that weren't in the Olympic basketball tournaments for either sex in 2012 and 2016. But no second chance for the United States, Lithuania or Canada. Ugggghhhh!!!

 

[JGX2]

I have a number of gripes with respect to how the whole Olympic 3x3 Tournament has been set up.

Me too!

First of all, the stated objective of FIBA is to grow the game internationally by expanding into more countries. Why then can only eight teams per sex qualify for the Olympics? In some tournaments teams play as many as five of these ten minute games per day. FIBA could easily have arranged for an Olympic tournament with four groups of four teams per sex.

It's up to the IOC how many teams/athletes can compete at the Olympics, FIBA doesn't really have control here. More athletes means more of a burden on the organizers in terms of housing and facilities.

That said, FIBA has been reducing the size of their own 3x3 events since their inception, and that's really a shame, since a big advantage of the format IMO is that with smaller teams, outdoor half-courts, and shorter games, you can have more participating teams. Instead the teams play four ten-minute games spread over four days! I'm sure that FIBA has their reasons for cutting down the number of teams and limiting their events to one court (they used to have four courts going simultaneously) but it is disappointing.

Secondly, I can understand Japan the host country automatically qualifying. And on the Men's side Serbia and Russia are also pre-qualified as the country's with the two highest ranking Federations in late 2019 (very luckily in Russia's case since Russia finished a miserable sixteenth at the 2019 World Cup and ninth at the 2019 Europe Cup).

The rankings are total crap and it discredits all the international tournaments. Just a few years ago Andorra was one of the top-ranked countries, even though they were not actually any good.

I am enjoying Mongolia's success though.

The United States finished first at the 2019 World Cup. You would think that would have pre-qualified the United States. But no, it's China that's somehow pre-qualified.

Thirdly, prior to the Qualifying Tournament I thought that Latvia, the United States, Lithuania and the Netherlands had the four best Men's teams ( I may of course be wrong). And after the preliminary round robin I would have expected playoff pairings of Group A versus Group B and Group C versus Group D. Failing that for a different symmetry Group A versus Group D and Group B versus Group C. But no. Somehow FIBA decided to pair Group A versus Group C and Group B versus Group D in the first round of the playoffs. WTF?! This means that the four best teams are likely to be matched against each other in the QFs and two will be eliminated.

Finally if they fail in this tournament, I see that the Men's teams of Latvia, the Netherlands and Slovenia will get another chance to grab the eighth and final qualifying slot in a Universality Qualifying Tournament for countries that weren't in the Olympic basketball tournaments for either sex in 2012 and 2016. But no second chance for the United States,

Everything about the qualifying setup is nonsensical. The Canadian women raised their own money to travel the world in 2019 playing in the FIBA 3x3 women's series that offered no prize money, won four of seven tournaments...and don't even get to play in the Olympic qualifiers. Meanwhile, Uruguay, who went winless at the 2019 Pan Am Games 3x3, has a spot.

 

[Hepcat2]

Damn! With under two minutes to go:

LTU 20 USA 16

But then nothing further drops on LTU's following four possessions, a slip by Darius Tarvydas, and a two by Joey King with less than twenty seconds to go and:

USA 21 LTU 20

Damn! Damn! Damn!

 

[Hepcat2]

Canada 18 Croatia 14
Canada 17 Netherlands 15

So Canada knocked off the Netherlands which I regarded among the top four favourites pre-tournament! That sets the table for a big game for first place in the group against Latvia tomorrow at 18:40 Austrian time.

 

[Mindozas6]

That was a group of death with Latvia, Dutch and Canada, so someone had to go home.

So far no big surprises. But one thing is quite sure that bracket side with B and D groups is much better one. It's a tough luck that someone from USA, Latvia, Lithuania, Canada will already go down in 1/4. All 4 could easily end up in semis as A+C side with France, Poland, Slovenia or Brazil doesn't look too convincing to me, but at least one of them will qualify

 

[Hepcat2]

So far no big surprises. But one thing is quite sure that bracket side with B and D groups is much better one. It's a tough luck that someone from USA, Latvia, Lithuania, Canada will already go down in 1/4.

Unfortunately two of those teams must be knocked out before the SFs. And that is just very wrong.

 

[Hepcat2]

Wow!

Belgium 20 U.S.A. 16

But Belgium gets jobbed by the tie breaking system and is eliminated from the playoffs.

And looking at the points scored tie breakers, Lithuania and the United States are tied. Who therefore gets awarded first place? Looking at point differential, Lithuania should get first.

 

[JGX2]

Wow!
And looking at the points scored tie breakers, Lithuania and the United States are tied. Who therefore gets awarded first place? Looking at point differential, Lithuania should get first.

Point differential is not a factor in 3x3 tiebreakers, only points scored. US gets first place in the group, either because of the head-to-head win over Lithuania or because of being the higher seed(!), it is not totally clear from the tiebreaker procedure.

 

[Hepcat2]

Agggghhhh!!!

Austria 19 Canada 16

Canada therefore drops to a 2-2 record together with the Netherlands and Austria. The first tiebreaker though is total points scored over all four games:

Netherlands 71
Canada 67
Austria 66

Canada therefore finishes third behind 4-0 Latvia and 2-2 Netherlands and Canada fails to make the playoffs.

 

[Hepcat2]

Point differential is not a factor in 3x3 tiebreakers, only points scored. US gets first place in the group, either because of the head-to-head win over Lithuania or because of being the higher seed(!), it is not totally clear from the tiebreaker procedure.

Looking at the total points scored tiebreaker for the three 3-1 teams in Group B:

United States 80
Lithuania 80
Belgium 77

If we look at just total points scored in the three games involving these teams it's the same picture:

United States 37
Lithuania 37
Belgium 36

The United States is very lucky that the tie breaker used in regular FIBA basketball tournaments wasn't applied, that being point differential in the three games involving these teams:

Belgium +3
Lithuania 0
United States -3

But it is what it is now. Tomorrow's QF pairings are:

Poland - Slovenia
Latvia - Lithuania
United States - Netherlands
France - Brazil

 

[JGX2]

The United States is very lucky that the tie breaker used in regular FIBA basketball tournaments wasn't applied, that being point differential in the three games involving these teams:

Belgium +3
Lithuania 0
United States -3

Not sure how anyone is "very lucky", obviously the teams design their tactics around the rules that are used in 3x3 tournaments and not the rules used in other tournaments.

From what I've seen there are no dominant teams and any of the final eight could qualify for the Olympics.

Women's quarterfinals:
Japan-Switzerland
Hungary-France
USA-Belarus
Spain-Australia

Switzerland beat the US at the tournament in France last week, would be nice to see them make it.

 

[Hepcat2]

From what I've seen there are no dominant teams and any of the final eight could qualify for the Olympics.

Well Latvia has looked very consistent and very good so far:

Latvia (Men)
The chemistry is so real with these guys, we're putting them up for a Nobel Prize. There's not a weak link on this team, and there's no squad in the world that wants to face them in their current form. They head into the quarterfinals where they'll face Lithuania, a familiar foe.

I'm hoping the Latvians stumble tomorrow but....